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Spring is Political Campaign Signs Season in Canada

Campaign Signs in Ottawa West – Nepean

It’s spring, flowers are blooming, the grass is green and… nope actually. Sorry, I was dreaming. It’s still cold and the only thing that seems to be growing these days is campaign signs. These big pieces of cardboard, commonly known as “lawn signs,” popped up magically the night after the federal elections were announced and are now spreading across the country. In fact, some signs were even up before the election was called!

You can’t miss them: they are at every busy intersection. Sooner or later, candidates’ supporters will canvass your riding and try to convince you to put one of their signs on your lawn as well. They help build name recognition and are a way to show your support and enthusiasm for a particular party or candidate.

Campaigns are full of lawn sign stories: an Unwelcome Tory sign irks Ottawa woman, a Conservative candidate is told to remove his sign from a federal building, Liberal candidate suffers $2,000 loss in vandalized campaign signs, and recycled campaign signs raise ire in Oak Ridges-Markham. Indeed, campaign signs are regulated. For instance, Election Canada states that “it is an offence to take down, remove, cover up, mutilate, deface or alter any printed advertisement, placard, poster or banner having reference to the election of a candidate without authority.”

Most surprising for me, the French immigrant, is the fact that lawn signs let everyone know who you support politically. While this is a big taboo in France it doesn’t seem to bother Canadians, who are usually quite private. But apparently, political affiliations aren’t a private topic here.

For instance, the four candidates in my riding (Ottawa West – Nepean) are John Baird (Conservative), Anita Vandenbeld (Liberal), Marlene Rivier (NDP) and Mark Mackenzie (Green). They all started to distribute their campaign signs a couple of weeks ago—John Baird himself even showed up at my door last Saturday! It’s like a chess game on the side of the road: candidate A puts one sign, candidate B adds a bigger one, candidate C puts his own sign in front of the two previous ones and they start all over again a few metres further. Some houses started to display signs on their front lawn as well: I have neighbours supporting the NDP, the Conservative and the Green Party.

I can’t imagine this kind of campaigning working well in France. First, while Canada usually has four or five parties for any given election, France has typically way more. For instance, there were 12 parties running for the 2007 presidential election, and 16 parties for the 2002 presidential election. Imagine the mess if each party were to put signs on the side of the road!

Second and most importantly, the French take politics very seriously. Discovering one morning that the upstairs neighbours support Le Pen (extreme-right borderline neo-Nazi party) and the one downstairs praise the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire would end in a bloodbath. Seriously. It would be like a Toronto Maple Leafs fan putting up a sign for his team downtown Montreal or a New York Yankees fan cheering among a crowd of Boston Red Sox fans.

I guess lawn signs are a good way for candidates to raise money and for supporters to contribute. They also help voters get to know the names of the candidates in a riding. Indeed, when the elections were announced, I tried to find out who would be running in my riding and I realized that no website maintains a comprehensive list of all the candidates per riding. You have to go to each party’s website to find out. A quick walk in the neighbourhood will let you know who is running—simply look at the campaign signs!

But aren’t ballots supposed to be secret? I still won’t display my political choice on my lawn. Still too French for that. Besides, as the old saying goes, “lawn signs don’t vote.” So, can we focus on putting forward ideas for Canada’s future instead of fighting over big pieces of cardboard?

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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